“I’m baffled. It’s a baffling thing,” UCLA defensive coordinator Joe Tresey said before the Bruins allowed 10 of 16 third downs in a 48-12 loss at Arizona last Thursday.

Yeah, we noticed, Joe.

The fact of the matter is that football is a game of strategy, of adjustments, and where your defenses are failing most is in the lack of any sort of meaningful adjustments. Rotating players in and out of the same poor scheme in hopes of finding success is not an adjustment.

It feels like Norm Chow all over again – you want players to fit your mold rather than adjusting to the personnel you have.

Anonymous

Reformed Droog’s last comment is spot on. This coaching staff (and really the entire Neuheisel tenure) has crippled the talent on this roster because of their insistence of forcing athletes to mold to their preferences. Instead, they should take a note from Jim Harbaugh – Keep a team identity in mind, but attain that goal by modifying your game planning AND adjustments according to the strengths of your players and the weaknesses of your opponents (which change on a weekly basis).

Coach Thom

Reformed Droog and Anonymous are making too much darn sense. This is NOT what we Bruin fans want to read. Actually, I think I recall Coach Mike stating when he first joined the program that he would ‘identify the individual talents of each offensive player, recognize his relative strengths and weaknesses, and then mold the offensive scheme accordingly.’ Hmmm. I guess that means throwing to Rosario Nelson on virtually every down because of his obvious strengths. Maybe Coach Joe is doing the same thing with his D players. Maybe they just don’t have any strengths. Anyway, UCLA, fight, fight, fight!

BruinFaithful

BOB…..where are you BOB? Sending out a search party for Bob and this Defense.

Back in February, when Tresey was hired, I was highly critical and down right upset over this hire. Calling the process embarrassing, CRN clueless and indecisive, and Tresey our 7-8 choice.

Supporters, like Bob, came out of the woodwork and lambasted me, even though I made lucid areguments and gave substantiating data. Bob and other supporters lauded Tresey’s numbers. I countered that Tresey’s numbers were skewed by playing a VERY weak non conference schedule and a VERY weak Conference USA and Big East schedule. Well, I guess the Pac-12 isn’t the Big East or Conference USA. I told Bob and others we would see who was right in November. I would venture it’s not even close.

Anonymous

What I don’t want to hear from Dan Guerrero.
“We want a coach that knows the UCLA culture”.
What culture? A Losing culture? So stop bringing guys that has UCLA culture in them. Bring in someone with a new attitude. A winning culture attitude. Anyone agree?

Reasonable Bruin

I understand that as D-coordinator the buck ultimately stops with Coach Tresey, and he has rightfully taken much of the heat for this complete embarrassment of a defense. However, I think the players are not getting their fair share of the criticism. Nothing against these guys personally, but as players the D-line is flat out awful, just pure garbage. You can have Bill Belichick as your D-Coordinator but it won’t do any good if you don’t have any talent around you.

And forget about Rick and his top recruiting classes. The only real blue chip recruits on the D-line were Marsh (who, although a head case is our best lineman, and Owa who’s largely been invisible). Most of our 4 and 5 star recruits have been at the skill positions – receiver, running back, and DB.

Dave Ball, Bruce Davis, Akeem Ayers, Brigham Harwell, Brian Price, et al were not all-conference because of great coaching, it was because they were damn good players.

Until the Bruins bring in beef on both sides of the line, the story will be the same old same old – able to beat the weaker teams (most of the time), but pushed around by the big boys (almost all of the time).

Bob

BruinFaithful,

Dude there are all lot of Bobs out here, hard to single out one in such a large group. I’m not sure you’ve been reading the blog close enough throughout the year. All this Bob has done is lambaste Tresy all season long.

I’m glad to see you don’t have much of a problem patting yourself on the back like you are some kind of genius at this point of the season. Good job professor “I told you so”.

BruinFaithful

You are right, I’m such an idiot for assuming it was you.

See how it works

Bob from account temps

I sure hope you’re not talking bout me willis

ucla-of-the-rockies

Coach Thom: Please start that intra-mural squash program ASAP. And take about two dozen of these football players and toughen them up a bit, would ya?

BruinFaithful

Bob:

If you’re not the Bob I’m speaking of, then WTF do you care. If you are truly concerned with being confused with that Bob, then why don’t you go get yourself a log in and a unique SN?

And I seem to think you might be that same Bob from February 15, he like to talk to himself also. It’s not the same thing, you see those scissors next to my name genius? They actually signify something. Let’s see how long it takes you to figure it out.

BruinFaithful

Reasonable Bruin:

I agree part of the problem lies with the players, but not because they don’t have talent or size. It is because they lack the physical and mental toughness and desire. This is ALL on the coaches. The coaches recruited these players. It’s the coaches job to develop them. Good coaches have players that play above their abilities. Bad coaches? Well we’ve seen the results.

It is clear that we have the talent to compete. Every team in this conference would LOVE to have the players we have. Get the right F’n coach in here and see what happens. There are plenty of examples in the Pac-12 of coaches who have taken moribund programs and talent and have developed them immediately with positive results.

Washington, 0-12, Stanford, 1-11, Cal, 1-10, and those coaches in a short period of time were able to use the same talent and produce immediate dramatic results and within 2-3 years compete for Pac-10 Championships.

Those teams have identities, what is ours?

Harbaugh turned that team around by playing Hard Intelligent FB. He let his players get after it in practice and really toughen each other up. Yes, there were injuries, but those injuries and healed scars and bruises made them tougher. Made them almost immune to the pain. They didn’t do it by arm tackling in practice. It is insane to me that our coaches don’t understand that how you practice is how you play. You can’t ask players to grab ass in practice and arm tackle or Ole tackle and then go out and smash the opposition. That is like asking a Boxer to Shadow Box and then go pound his opponent. Injuries be damned. We have the depth now. You build toughness by letting them get after it and truly practice live. SUC’s defense was HORRIBLE last year, because they tried to practice soft to save the depth chart and Lame said it was a HUGE mistake and he would never do it again. Look at how SUC’s defense has looked the last few games.

Chip Kelly to me, is one of the most talented and amazing coaches around. I remember after the Boise St. loss and sucker punch after the game and ensuing melee in his first game, thinking “Wow, this could get really ugly for him and the wheels could fall off really quick if he doesn’t reel his players in.” He went on, disciplined and rallied his players and won the Pac-10 Championship.

One thing I had long suspected and confirmed over Fall Camp this year, was the Attitude of the players and the lack of discipline and toughness. I ran into a player in Westwood Village and we got into a conversation. At some point I asked him, a defensive player whose name I won’t mention, “How come you guys walk around practice with your helmets off? When I played HS ball it was 105 and smoggy as heck and we kept our helmets on ALL practice. Only time we took them off was for water breaks and after practice. Anybody who didn’t, was disciplined.” He said, “Man, pfffff, Come on, we’re grown men. Coaches can’t force us. What are they going to do, punish us?” I was thinking YEAH!!!! Maybe something small, but signs of much larger problems I witnessed during practice, which I didn’t bring up. Players dragging around practice, not paying attention, talking BS to each other while the coaches were teaching, goofing around, seemingly uninterested in what the coaches had to say.

Now I ask you, who’s fault is it? Jon alluded to discipline problems. Where is it? The discipline?Besides missing games and playing time, what has the punishment been for the stoners and fighters? Do players get punished for mental mistakes and penalties? Are there repercussions for jumping offsides or personal fouls? I know guys had to run after Saturday Film sessions, until they puked, and yeah it sucked, but that’s WTF you got for screwing up. Shoot, I remember having to run for being late to practice. Where is the accountability?

Bruin Gold

I am shocked at how many of our UCLA Football Players have LOW football IQs. They don’t know the basics of football.

For example, it is laughable that the coaches have to work with the front-line players so that they stand with a lower level of gravity so that they can won’t get rooted out by our opponents. That is middle-school and high-school second string stuff.

Unfortunately, we ran out of good players when Akeem Ayers left for the NFL. He was one of the last high IQ football players we had.

Now all we have are the dregs.

Signs of a bad player:
1. Injured frequently.
2. Lack of discipline
3. Frequent numbskull penalties – such as false starts or lining up in the neutral zone.
4. Joking and partying after losing a game.
5. Lack of high football IQ
6. Lack of skill in the basics of football.
7. Lack of execution.
8. Lack of a competitive, warrior attitude.
9. etc.
We have many, many bad players.

ucla-of-the-rockies

Faithful: I remember thinking the EXACT same thing about Chip Kelly after Blunt’s sucker punch. He and Harbaugh are solid comparisons since each hired right around CRN.
Nice post.
And as for running after film, we had a set of foothills nearby called The Old Goat Trail back in high school. My junior year, we knew every rock and twig out there, as we went 3-7 and played even worse. We had a few senior punks that always had us in trouble.
One funny memory was from my freshman year when one coach yelled at us, spitting even into the second row, about how one group like us ran until midnight up on The Old Goat Trail back in the 1950s, not stopping until one player went to the hospital.
My afterthought on this year’s batch of Bruins is that if the AZ game film was actually fully viewed and broken down as a team, my old coach would still have the team running, puking and, hopefully, letting the harshest of discipline sink in until there was A CHANGE OF CULTURE that would then be put on display under the Friday Night Lights thanks to the devil himself up on The Old Goat Trail.
Instead, this team seems to be disciplined with the full fury of cotton candy.

Baffled

The 3rd and shorts and subsequent conversions are not baffling at all when you consider the frequency with which the corners play 8-10 yards deep no matter the down and distance.

Adjustments were made, but why do they take half-time? Why aren’t they made after the first series?

That said, the entire team looked ill prepared for AZ.

Commitment is necessary but insufficient to the task. Coach N is like Coach D, knows football, can’t teach or motivate.

In general what everyone is saying,is(spare the rod spoil the child).the rod meaning discipline!

I’m Baffled

I’m Baffled…. Let’s see, no pressure on the QB; against the run the D Line consistently pushed off the line, LB’s out of their gaps, cornerbacks playing 10 yards off the line. How can he be baffled??? I’m baffled that he’s a D-Coordinator.

Adjustments during the bye week? Really, I’d like to hear more about his adjustments. It looked like the same old soft coverage and poor defense.

I agree, we’ll never be a serious program until we recruit quality OL, DL, QB, and $$$ for a coaching staff. Lets face it, UCLA is just not serious about football.

BruinRogue

I never wanted Tresey. I wanted Randy Shannon. But yea, it’s obvious we suck at 3rd down because we give 10-15 yard cushions and can’t hold the line.

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